We do the evaluation of our team, and the purpose of that is then to establish what we call musts, needs, and wants. So who are our musts? I would say we need a ‘Joker.’ And a Joker, now, can be a tight end that has exceptional [receiving ability]… they have to be elite receivers that play tight end or running back, and then you get the matchups.
Broncos coach Sean Payton said that on February 5, 2025 on the NFL-centric Up & Adams show. What’s not to like when your head coach clearly identifies an area of dire need? Wanting a versatile player who can run and catch is not a novel idea, but Coach Payton planted an orange and blue flag in the ground. Every sports writer, blogger, fan, and pundit immediately ran with the ‘Joker’ idea it quickly became a buzzword in Broncos Country.
When the Broncos signed tight end Evan Engram, he was hailed as the perfect solution to the new-found joker-need. After having solid stints with the New York Giants and the Jacksonville Jaguars, Engram was poised to go off, right?
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Engram notched 50 receptions on 76 targets for 461-yards and 1 touchdown receiving and on the ground he had 1 rushing attempt for 7-yards. Last year was his second-least productive year of his career.
Don’t get me wrong, the Broncos had a stellar 2025 season that could have ended with a trip to the Super Bowl were it not for Bo Nix’s ankle and a couple doofus decisions in the AFC Championship game. For all the successes of the season, Evan Engrams’ transformation into an unknown offensive threat as a joker was not one of them.
It’s wild to think that nobody was talking about the need for a joker until Coach Payton mentioned it. Then, for months it was all anyone remotely connected to the Broncos could talk about. Then, when the Broncos finally get the one they call ‘joker,’ they don’t end up using him as one.
So did the Broncos really need a joker? It appears that they didn’t utilize Engram as one or he didn’t perform up to the standards a joker moniker demands. Was it a distraction from other things they were doing? Once it was mentioned as a need, there was a seismic attention-shift toward this mythical jack-of-all-trades. What’s also interesting is that despite Engram’s lack of production, there’s not much talk about the joker’s output, good or bad. Is it really something Broncos Country should wring their hands over?
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In the end, every team would love to have that joker-type player; that guy who gets the ball and you just don’t know what he’s going to do with it. It’s like when you’re playing cards, jokers aren’t regularly found in the discard pile. The same is true for highly-versatile players like the ones Sean Payton covets. They’re out there, but they’re going to spring up when you least expect it, just like they do when you’re playing cards. With all due respect to Evan Engram, the search for Sean Payton’s joker should be an ongoing process.
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